Strike Update 5/10
One month ago, I spoke out against the possibility of our kids missing out on even more of their education than they already have. What I wrote then — “collective bargaining should never disrupt learning” — still applies now, five days into a strike that never needed to happen.
So, what went wrong? The union is using a common good proposal to justify a strike, despite the fact that it’s at odds with what the district can legally negotiate. The union is calling the district out for “bad-faith bargaining” without truthfully telling us how or why. The union is describing a fantasy rather than facing the reality that when this is all over, the district will be left with higher compensation costs, decreased state funding, continued declining enrollment, and still only 3 out of 10 students who can read or do math on grade level.
There's a false assumption going around that this ongoing strike is meant to help Black and brown students. It’s not. Instead, this strike is proving the opposite.
Without school in session, the flatlands of Oakland are a ghost town, where our lower income Black and brown students already have some of the lowest reading and math scores in California and an absenteeism rate close to 50% among Black students. Meanwhile, one elementary school in Chinatown has never fully participated in this strike, with about 10 teachers and a third of their students coming to school. “Hills” families have been writing letters to their teachers and crossing picket lines to ensure they won’t be impacted by this strike.
Those parents are simply exercising their agency, like any parent would, to protect their kids’ education. Unfortunately, leaving Oakland has become the only way many Black, brown, and lower income families can exercise their agency to do the same. This strike is showing us whose education the status quo saves, and whose education it sacrifices.
The longer this strike continues, the more it will cost us — physically, emotionally, academically, and in literal dollars. With no end in sight, I will keep speaking out against this tragedy and calling for its end. For more up-to-date information and insight into this strike moving forward, please follow me on Twitter at @LakishaYoungCEO
